The present application relates to conduit benders and is particularly concerned with an accessory that can be attached to the handle of a conduit bender to facilitate shoulder bending and conventional bending.
There are numerous types and styles of portable conduit benders which are used by electricians for bending conduit at a job site to form bends or curves of predetermined angles prior to installation of the conduit in a new or existing building. The conduit is used as a duct for housing electrical wiring. One of the most common types of conduit benders used by electricians has a head that includes an arcuate-shaped base or rocker portion with a longitudinally extending conduit-receiving groove formed therein. There is a conduit-engaging hook portion formed at one end and a foot treadle portion at the opposite end. An elongated handle is attached to the head for applying bending pressure to a section of conduit in combination with pressure applied to the treadle portion. Examples of these types of benders are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,584,537, 2,817,986 and 4,269,056, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Conventional use of the bender occurs with the head on a horizontal surface such as the floor and the handle extending upwardly from the floor. However, certain types of bends are best made with the tool inverted from its conventional orientation, i.e., the free end of the handle is placed on a horizontal surface and the head is up in the air, as illustrated in FIG. 1. Typically the horizontal surface is the floor, although it could also be a bench, a table top, a chair seat, the ground or the like. It will be understood that the term horizontal surface will be used herein to refer to all of these possibilities, even if such surface is not perfectly horizontal. Bends made with the tool in this inverted orientation are referred to as shoulder bends or air bends. Saddle bends, 3-point bends or 4-point bends are typically made using shoulder bends.
In the past a constant problem with shoulder bends has been stabilizing the free end of the handle on the horizontal surface. Shoulder bends typically result in forces being applied to the handle which rotate the handle about its contact with the horizontal surface. Thus, the handle does not remain perpendicular to the horizontal surface and forces having components lateral to the horizontal surface are applied to the handle. Often the horizontal surface is an unfinished floor made of material, e.g., concrete, which provides relatively little resistance to skidding or slipping of the free end of the handle. Thus, the bending forces applied to the handle create a tendency for the free end of the handle to kick out laterally or skid. This leads to inaccurate bends and lost time and materials as users struggle to keep the handle upright on the floor. Users sometimes try to counteract the skidding tendency of the handle by placing one foot next to the handle. But this only deters skidding in one direction. Even worse, it places the user's feet in an awkward position that leaves the user unbalanced just as he or she has to apply significant force to the conduit. This results in an unsafe condition.